(NewsRadio); Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva says she had a “fruitful exchange” with her Chinese counterparts on accelerating debt treatments for countries like Zambia and Sri Lanka.
IMF Chief Georgieva, World Bank President David Malpass and other financial leaders met in person in China’s Anhui province this week with officials from the People’s Bank of China, China’s finance ministry and its EXIM Bank and China Development Bank.
Georgieva said the discussions touched on the common framework for debt treatment set up in late 2020 by China, the United State and other Group of 20 major economies, as well as some specific cases of countries seeking debt relief.
Georgieva said in a statement, “We need to build on the momentum of the agreement on Chad’s debt treatment and accelerate and finalize the debt treatments for Zambia and Sri Lanka, which would allow for disbursements from the IMF and multilateral development banks.”
The IMF Chief said other countries also faced mounting debt distress given tightening global financial conditions.
“We talked about how we can prevent individual cases of debt distress from triggering a global debt crisis,” she said, calling again for quicker, more predictable progress on debt treatments and expansion of the framework to more countries.
Sri Lanka has already reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF and is waiting for creditors to agree on a debt structuring programme in order to secure an IMF bailout package.
China along with Japan and India are the biggest bilateral lenders of Sri Lanka.
They will have to agree on a debt restructuring programme in order for Sri Lanka to secure a bailout package from the IMF.
